Breaking Point

by Allison Brennan

  Odd for her to recollect that. What did it mean? That they were friendly? More?

  “Do you know where Tommy Zimmerman is? A city, town, state—anything that can help us track him down?”

  “No. Just not L.A. He called often, like every week or two, talked to Mr. Hirsch.”

  “You’ve done great.”

  “I haven’t done anything.”

  “You have. We know that Z is Hirsch’s partner, but we don’t know anything about him—now that you’ve given me his name, we can find him.” She hoped sooner rather than later.

  “You really think so?”

  “Yes.”

  “Will you let me know? If you find her? No matter what? Even if she’s, you know, dead?”

  “Yes, I promise.”

  “Laura promised she would never lie to me, and she hasn’t. So I’m going to tell her I called you.”

  “Good.”

  Christina was quiet for a long minute.

  “Christina?”

  “Did it get better with your mom?”

  What did she say to that? “My mom is older—I’m the youngest of seven kids. I never talked about it with her. Ever. But what made all the difference was that she was there for me. Just … there. And eventually, she stopped looking at me like I was about to shatter.” She didn’t add that partly that was because she’d moved in with Dillon. Christina didn’t need to know all of the details, but she wasn’t going to lie.

  “Like how long? Weeks? Years?”

  “Somewhere in between. I had someone else to talk to.”

  “A counselor?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t tell you this. I was forced to go to a counselor, but I quit after a couple of sessions. I had a hard time talking to a stranger. The person who helped me the most? There were two—my brother Dillon listened. He was calm and centered. A lot like Laura. And my brother Jack. Jack taught me not to feel sorry for myself. He taught me self-defense, that I was stronger than I thought, and he never once, for a minute, showed me pity.”

  “Really? You talked to men about what happened?”

  “I didn’t talk to Jack about it—he knew, I didn’t have to say anything. And Dillon is … well … he’s special. And it’s not a man thing. For me anyway. You talk to who helps you. If it’s Laura, great. If it’s someone else, that’s okay too. The important thing is that you find a way to put everything that happened in the past and get beyond the guilt, the regrets, the what-ifs. You can’t live like that. Trust me.”

  * * *

  It was too late for Lucy to act on the new information. She sent the name “Tommy Zimmerman” to Kate and copied in the rest of the task force, as well as the facts about Hope’s alias as “Pixie.”

  Lucy had felt a kinship with Bella as soon as she found out why she’d gone undercover. While intellectually, and as a cop, she had understood Bella’s need to rescue the innocent, it wasn’t until Kane shared her story that Lucy realized they were a lot alike.

  Except Lucy didn’t know if she could have done the same thing. She was so antsy and nervous discussing casual sex, she often cringed at public displays of affection, sexual comments had her blushing and embarrassed. She could talk about it as a cop, she could listen to rape victims, but that was because she could separate her job from herself when she needed to. But every moment of her life? Not anymore. She’d done it for a long time, put up that icy barrier so nothing—not the good or the bad—could get inside.

  Sean changed all that. She had survived because she was a survivor; Sean had given her a new life.

  Lucy admired Bella’s ability to separate what happened in her past with who she was today, while using the experience to save others who had found themselves in the same situation. Lucy was quickly losing it. Could she do this? She’d held it together when Christina was on the phone, but now her composure was melting. The feelings of being a victim, the pain and anger and humiliation, washed over her.

  She put her head in her arms and took a deep breath. Then another. She had to regain her center.

  Sean opened the door. “Luce? You’ve been quiet.”

  She looked up and saw Sean in the light. Relief and love replaced the pain and anger. “I’m okay.”

  Sean took her hand and helped her up. He held her close, kissed her forehead. She put her hand on his chest and felt his heart beating. Fast, too fast. As they held each other, his heart calmed and so did hers.

  “You need to sleep, Princess,” he whispered.

  She let him pick her up and carry her back to bed. She touched his face, brought his lips down to hers.

  “I love you so much,” she whispered. And she kissed him. She never wanted to let him go.

  Sean was exactly what she needed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Saturday

  Bella woke up as soon as her door opened.

  “Sorry to wake you,” Damien mumbled.

  She sat up in her bed. She always slept fully dressed—usually sweat pants and a tank top. But she still felt uncomfortable.

  “We have a situation,” he said. “One of the whores was beaten pretty bad last night. We need you to take a look at her.”

  And so it began. Back to the business of keeping Hirsch’s girls healthy and breathing.

  Until he decided to sell them or kill them.

  “Five minutes,” she mumbled.

  “I made coffee.”

  “Thanks.”

  She waited until he shut the door then changed into her jeans, bra, and a grey T-shirt. Grey like her mood. She couldn’t even crack a smile.

  They were on a large piece of land off Highway 82, right before it turned into the TB Ellison Parkway heading into Louisiana. The property went deep, from the road to the bay. There were two boats docked and when they first arrived last night she thought for certain they were leaving the country.

  Someone owned the house. She didn’t know if it was Tommy Z—who could not be the Tommy she knew eighteen years ago—or Hirsch himself. It wouldn’t be under either of their names. Hell, they could be renting, or their shell corp could have bought it.

  The trucking company Hirsch had bought was practically walking distance from the house—if you liked to trek a mile in humidity so thick you couldn’t walk outside without feeling like you were drowning. Even now, in March, it was sticky. A shipping company that might not even be open and an oil refinery that was certainly closed or working at a fraction of its capacity were also nearby. The town was depressed, worse because of last year’s flooding, but there were some signs of economic activity.

  The house itself was a real house, far cleaner than anything they’d lived in up until now. Old—at least from the forties—and showing its wear, but it was well-maintained for the most part. Except that it smelled rotten. Like mold and dead things, probably because it hadn’t been properly cleaned out after last year’s horrific flooding throughout southeast Texas. The furniture and carpets were new, but Bella suspected the mold and dry rot had been painted over.

  Still, it was big enough for all of them and none of the girls stayed here. Four bedrooms, two bathrooms, and Hirsch gave her her own space. She was stunned.

  You’re one of them now. He trusts you.

  He didn’t trust her. He just wasn’t as suspicious.

  But she had to remain cautious. Very, very careful.

  She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and washed her face and brushed her teeth. Took a deep breath, grabbed her black bag, and went out to the kitchen. “Where is she?” she asked Damien as he handed her a to-go cup of coffee. She was nervous—she always poured her own coffee.

  “Two sugars, just how you like it,” he said.

  “Thanks.” She shouldn’t be surprised he knew how she drank her coffee—they had been associating for the last year. Living in the same house much of the time.

  He smiled.

  Two smiles in two days from a man who rarely turned his lips up.

  “I’ll take you to the house.”

 
She didn’t see Hirsch or his goon anywhere. Maybe they were gone. Or sleeping. On one of the boats perhaps.

  Damien drove into town. Oil tanks populated the landscape. Bella didn’t know much about the business of oil refineries, but it seemed to be the primary source of income in the community—that and the port.

  He drove past the port, then into a mixed neighborhood—small, single family homes and duplexes on the corner that didn’t look much bigger than the single-family homes. Some houses were completely boarded up. Some had been reduced to rubble, untouched since the hurricane. Others, the residents were in the middle of rebuilding what they had, putting back lawns and flowers and painting their homes. Land was cheap in Texas, so she wasn’t surprised that all the homes—occupied or not—were on large lots. Most didn’t have fences; some were framed by chain link.

  He stopped at a small house across from a refinery that appeared to be abandoned, though she saw a lone car inside the tall, barbed-wire topped fences.

  She already felt greasy just walking around Port Arthur. But that might have more to do with the humidity. She couldn’t imagine living here when it was ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity.

  “What happened?” she asked before getting out.

  “Our operation here is large—our guy runs most of the whores. It’s a quiet town, no one bothers us. One of the regulars was drunk, apparently had a bad day, took it out on one of the girls.”

  “And what did your guy do with the drunk?”

  “Took him home, told him he was cut off for a couple weeks. He didn’t even know what he’d done.”

  Bella bit back her anger.

  “She has a cut that needs stitches. Do a good job, she’s a pretty one, always surpasses her quota.”

  This was the time when she could blow it. Even after nearly a year, she could blow it because she wanted to pound Damien, then pound the john who hurt the prostitute. She didn’t care if the girls were legitimately in the business, she had no tolerance for such brutality.

  “You know, D, if you don’t tell your pimps to keep the johns in line they’ll really cut into your profits.”

  “Doc, don’t.”

  “I can’t help it, D. These are working girls. They’re just trying to survive, do the job, have a life, you know? Just like you and me.”

  “I’ll talk to Gino, if you want.”

  He sounded like he would do it as a favor to her, and she was already in too deep. “Don’t do anything on account of me. I’m just stating the obvious.”

  They got out and Damien glanced around. The neighborhood was depressed, quiet. A dog barked in the distance. It was early Saturday morning, not even six a.m. No kids were out playing. No elderly people were out walking. It was a ghost town. Maybe more of these houses were vacant than she’d originally thought. People permanently relocated after the flood. Maybe that’s why Hirsch wanted it—fewer people, more opportunities to move his product under the radar.

  Damien knocked and a woman opened the door. She was in her thirties. She had a black eye and didn’t say anything as Damien and Bella walked in.

  The black eye looked fresh.

  Had she bitched and someone hit her? Damien?

  Bella looked at his hands. He had old cuts, nothing recent. But one well-aimed punch might not leave a mark.

  Damien led the way to the back. The house was clean but cramped with furniture and that faint moldy scent that seemed to permeate the entire town. A huge television was mounted on the wall. A woman—not a young girl—was watching cartoons. She was in her thirties and had recently come off work, it seemed—she was still dressed in a short skirt and her makeup hadn’t been washed off. The old mascara left her with raccoon eyes, and the bright blue eyeshadow didn’t do her complexion any favors. She completely ignored them.

  As Bella walked through she determined that six women lived in the two-bedroom, one-bath house. They were in their twenties and thirties. How many of these places did Hirsch operate?

  Damien opened the bedroom door on the left without knocking.

  Three twin beds were in the room. One had a woman sleeping, snoring quietly. The other was empty and unmade. The third had the victim.

  “The doctor’s here,” Damien said. He stood in the doorway.

  Bella wanted him to leave, but he didn’t, and she wasn’t going to ask him. She had a feeling that he would leave and consider it another favor, and she didn’t want him to think she needed to repay him.

  She assessed the girl. She was younger than the others, but over eighteen. Probably twenty, twenty-two. Bella didn’t know why she was relieved.

  Her hair was wet and it was clear that she’d showered when she got off work. She was under a thick blanket even though the room was uncomfortably warm.

  “What’s your name?” she asked. She spoke crisply. She wasn’t here to coddle the women, and if she started to do that, Damien would be suspicious.

  “Sue-Ann,” she rasped in a thick southern accent.

  “I need some light—I can’t see anything, D.”

  Damien turned on the lights. They weren’t bright, but they would suffice. The sleeping woman didn’t budge.

  Bella frowned at the visible damage on Sue-Ann’s petite body. Her neck was bruised. There was a deep cut on her cheek that she had washed, but it was still bleeding. She also had a black eye, and she winced when the lights came on.

  Bella wasn’t a real doctor, which made all this that much more difficult. What if she had internal bleeding? What if there was something more serious that she couldn’t diagnose?

  She opened her bag and took out a pen light. She checked Sue-Ann’s pupils. They reacted slowly, and one pupil was distinctly larger than the other.

  “Follow my finger,” she said.

  Bella had had a concussion in the past and knew exactly what the symptoms were. She went through the protocol checklist.

  “She has a concussion,” she told Damien.

  “She can take a couple days off. I’ll tell Gino not to dock her. Just stitch up that cut.”

  “She was beaten up, D. I think the cut is the least of our worries right now.”

  “What worries?”

  She didn’t respond. “Sue-Ann, tell me what happened.”

  “That’s not necessary,” Damien said.

  Bella got up and left the room. Damien followed. How did she play this? Professional.

  “Damien,” she said firmly, “the girl was beaten severely. She has a serious concussion and could have internal bleeding. I need to know exactly where she’s hurting. If she has a broken rib, I can’t fix it with my medical bag. We’ll have to get her to a clinic or someplace where I have access to equipment and supplies. If they’re just cracked, I need to tape them up. If they’re broken and I don’t know? She can puncture a lung. I won’t know anything until I check her out, understand?”

  “You’re testy today.”

  “I’m tired.” She took a deep breath. “Look—you want me to do my job, this is how I do it. Remember the skinny black girl I patched up in L.A.? I still had my medical truck back then. I had what I needed. I think Sue-Ann has the same sort of injuries.”

  “Think he got off strangling her? He was drunk. He didn’t mean it, it wasn’t like last time.”

  “I don’t give a shit if he meant it, I just care about getting her healthy so she can do her fucking job, and if I miss something … well, I won’t.” She knew what would happen. If Sue-Ann was seriously injured and needed major medical attention, they would kill her.

  “I get it. We might have someone in town who can help—I’ll make a call.”

  “Thank you,” she said, calmer.

  She went back into the room. Damien didn’t follow her. She didn’t dare shut the door, because that would make him suspicious.

  She sat on the edge of the bed. The movement made Sue-Ann wince.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I just need to sleep, sugar,” she said. Whispered was more like it.

/>   “Well, you can’t,” Bella said. “You have a concussion. Someone has to wake you up every hour on the hour to make sure you’re okay for the next day or two, okay?”

  “I’m fine, really.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I don’t want to make trouble.”

  Bella wanted to throttle her on the one hand, and grab her and run her to the hospital on the other.

  “You have no trouble with me. I’m a doctor. Yeah, I lost my license for some shit that went down, but I can figure out what’s wrong with you. I just need to know what happened.”

  Sue-Ann tried to sit up and grunted.

  “Just stay down. Talk.”

  “Well, Papi is always a little rough, but he’s had a tough life, you know?”

  And being a hooker wasn’t a tough life? But Bella remained silent.

  “He had a real rough day. His ex-wife wants full custody of their kids. He didn’t get a raise he was expecting. And his truck broke down out on the highway. He started drinking early, and sometimes, you know, when a man drinks too much he can’t keep it up. I tried, really I did, because he needed relief, but it wasn’t enough. Then I suggested that maybe we watch some sexy movies, get him in the mood. But he didn’t take it right, and just got a little out of hand, that’s all.”

  This woman had no self-esteem or self-respect. Unfortunately, in Bella’s world—first as a forced prostitute, then as a cop, then as an investigator for Simon—she had met far too many women like Sue-Ann. Most had shitty childhoods. Didn’t have support from anyone. Some were abused, some were just left on their own with no direction. Some watched their parents fight, or their mothers take a beating, or their daddies drink or touch them.

  It was fucked. The world was fucked. Bella hated people.

  “Where did he hurt you?”

  “My holes both hurt. More than usual.” She wasn’t looking at Bella. “I had to shower because there was blood.”

  “Are you still bleeding?”

  She shrugged.

  “Where else does it hurt?”